Robinsons Search for a Star - Coming to a Theatre near you!

Top Ender loved the Panto last year that we saw (Cinderella at Milton Keynes Theatre) and loved putting on her own Pantos (with the Robinsons Put on a Panto website) and so when she realised that this year she was old enough to audition for the local Panto she was very excited. I was even more excited because not only is Joanna Page in the Panto this year, but so is Stavros Flatley and Luke Perry! Of course we signed her up as soon as we were able to.

I don't think it was a coincidence but more of a stroke of luck that we were invited down to meet Joanna Page at the launch of the Robinsons Search for a Star in Milton Keynes, and Top Ender although not quite realising who Joanna was at the time did recognise Dick Whittington (A beautiful Jenna Brook) and Sarah (A handsome David Chambers and if your reading this David let me know your website and I will link to you too!) as characters from Panto.

If you don't know me in real life feel free to skip this next paragraph and for those of you who do know me in real life his name really was DC and I did kind of shout out disbelievingly "Your joking!" before explaining why I shouted that at him. It wasn't really *our* DC though was it? Someone saw him yesterday afternoon at the end of day right?

Joanna was so sweet and took the time to speak to Top Ender and I (Baby Boy had fallen asleep) on several occasions even though there were the local newspapers and local TV Stations there (and they were probably much more important for coverage than me) and even started having a discussion about Glee with Top Ender and after a quick rendition of Journey's Don’t Stop Believin’ by Top Ender told her that she hoped that she would audition for the Panto. Top Ender was of course ecstatic and is now really looking forward to the auditions in early September!

This compliment meant that Top Ender thought it was only fair to warn Joanna that "Sarah isn't really a girl, but a boy wearing girls clothes and that boy is really a girl dressed up!" which Joanna displayed great mock surprise at and said something about keeping an eye on them for Top Ender!

Now Top Ender has already made me log on to the Robinsons Search For a Star website and register her for one of the 400 audition spots in Milton Keynes (there are now 399 left people!) and if you think that your children might like a chance and they are aged between 6 and 16 then hurry along and see if a Panto near you is taking part (As far as I can tell the 12 areas which are taking part are; Aylesbury, Glasgow, Brighton, Bristol, Bromley, Liverpool, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Richmond, Stoke on Trent, Wimbledon and Woking) and register quickly!

Of course we will keep you fully updated with the Audition process, but if you could all let Top Ender know that you are supporting her and keeping your fingers crossed and saying things like "Break a leg" then I would be really really grateful!

The Magical Menagerie (Le Manege Carre Senart)

At the moment in Milton Keynes there is a fantastical carousel, which is quite unlike any carousel I have ever seen before. For a start the carousel is square and instead of horses to ride on, there are mechanical creatures such as buffalo, fish and insects that are operated by the people riding on them!

When Daddy first heard about the Manege Carre Senart coming to Milton Keynes as part of the Milton Keynes International Festival, he sent me the link so that I could see the carousel as he knew that I would have to see it to believe it. Since it opened for business on the 16th July, we have been up to see the Carousel a couple of times and finally we got our chance to go last night and to have a ride.

The carousel is huge, it is said in the information that it is as tall as a house and it is just as impressive. The whole structure is decorated, with the metal work on the roof in the shapes of Snails and Frogs and other creatures.

The outer ring of the Carousel are one seater creatures and they travel in a clockwise direction and as you can see are fairly large in size!

  

The inner ring are larger multiple rider creatures which travel in a anticlockwise direction. If you have a child under seven who wants to ride, then this is where you should head as children under seven have to be accompanied by an adult.

We were really lucky that we got to ride the entire Carousel by ourselves and Top Ender chose for us to go on a Buffalo in the centre. We climbed up wooden steps to sit upon the top of the mechanical creature, where five separate seats with seat belts were waiting for us.

We seated Top Ender and Baby Boy in the front and Daddy and I took two of the rear seats and started to look round at the various levers and handles that were around us (and between our legs!). Top Ender was in heaven and Baby Boy were in heaven with the noise and the movement and loved every second.

  

As soon as Top Ender got off the ride she asked if we could go back on, we explained that the Carousel will be in Milton Keynes (just outside The Point) until the 8th August and so we would have plenty of time to go back and have another ride and time to save up!

The Carousel is open from 12 noon until 8pm (but not at all on the 2nd August). If you book in advance Weekday tickets cost £10 for a family of four (£12 if you just turn up) and at weekends booked in advanced tickets cost £14 (or £16 if you just turn up). The ride itself lasts for around five minutes, but the happy feeling you get from riding will last for a lot longer!

Milton Keynes: Where I live and why I love it

A few weeks before my seventh birthday my parents moved with my sister and I from Garston (just outside of Watford) in Hertfordshire, to a town called Linslade in Bedfordshire. Linslade is right next door to a town called Leighton Buzzard, in fact if you wanted to go shopping you had to go to Leighton Buzzard as that is where the high street is.

Leighton-Linslade (as it is known colloquially) is one of those places that is brilliant to live but really rubbish to visit. Unless you are on a canal trip, into WW1 aircraft the Vimey Bombers, interested where Mary Norton who wrote The Borrowers lived or want to see where The Great Train Robbery happened. For those in to popular music Kajagoogoo and The Barron Knights were formed in the area (and I use to live two doors up from Stuart from Kajagoogoo and I use to speak with one of the Barron Knights when I was a credit controller!) and if you want something a little more scary The Fox was in the area and caused a big todo in the summer of 1984.

Okay so maybe it isn't that bad.

Of course there were times when you wanted something a bit more exciting, like a trip to McDonald's or a trip to the cinema or even a trip to C&A's and for that you would have to go to Milton Keynes. Milton Keynes was shiny and exciting and where I moved to when I got married to Daddy, in 2001.
Milton Keynes has been the butt of many jokes in the past due to the impression that it is a concrete city with an extraordinary number of roundabouts, but this is not the real Milton Keynes. That is not the Milton Keynes that I have fallen in love with. Did you know that here in Milton Keynes there are more than 22 million trees? For a town that is 34.1 square miles that's not bad going!

Of course we do have concrete cows, a concrete snowman and lots of roundabouts, but we also have a fantastic shopping Centre, which is so fantastic that Cliff Richard recorded a music video there. I would of put the video into this post, but for some reason Cliff doesn't want me to share the worlds greatest music video in my blog post, so you will have to go and see it at YouTube. Go on go watch it, I'll wait.

Cliff is to Tennis as Strawberries are to Cream.

Did you watch the video? Speed Boats, sports cars and roller skates. Tell me its not the best music video ever and I shall give you your crazy certificate ;) The best bit (IMHO) is the skating up and down past trees and a big brown wall, which is actually the external wall of the Milton Keynes John Lewis! If you look you can actually see that the wall tiles spell out John Lewis!.

Oh and the shopping centre doesn't have a C&A anymore, but it does have banana trees!

As you saw in the Cliff video, there is a lake in Milton Keynes. Actually there is more than one, there are several and each lake is great for walking or running or cycling round. In fact the whole of Milton Keynes is great for walking or running or cycling round. Then are a number of redways (the local cycling routes) that criss cross the city with over 280km covered and a lot of paths that mean walking from the local Hospital to Ikea (as I did once with Top Ender and Baby Boy) doesn't take that long and can be done without crossing a major road. This is because of the number of underpasses and bridges (more bridges in Milton Keynes than there are in Venice you know) and the fantastic grid road system.

An underpass, makes it safe to cross a major road

Of course you don't have to walk as Milton Keynes was designed for the car, (as the grid system proves) but with being green and environmentally friendly so important we have a fantastic public transport service, with all parts of the city being accessible by bus (well there are some disputes about that, but I can get where I want by bus if I need to) and by train. There are five train stations in the Milton Keynes area (six if you include Woburn Sands, but technically it is just out of the area) and if you think that the train station at Central Milton Keynes looks familiar you might be pleased to know that it was the UN Building in Superman IV... (and I saw a bit of it being filmed on a day out!)

The Roads in Central Milton Keynes all numbered too, and referenced as either a "V" or a "H" road. That's right there are vertical and horizontal roads. It makes it very easy to not get lost and to work out where you are and is why you will often here locals talking about not being on the H8 at rush hour. The rather brilliant thing about Milton Keynes being set on a grid system if you ever take a wrong turn it is very easy to get back to where you were a few moments before! All we need now is an underground service and we would be set!

Not really an underground system, but a map of Milton Keynes!

It has been said that Milton Keynes has no culture. This really annoys me because people don't look at Milton Keynes more than seeing that it has a grid system and houses which at first glance all look the same and that it is a "new Town" built for people to move to who lived in London. We have an Art Gallery and a Theatre, we have art trails, sculptures in public places, buildings which are beautiful to look at (the Art Gallery won an Architectural award in 2008), Churches with history (St Marys in Bletchley for example has what looks like a Wine Glass in the external wall, but its is really part of a tomb that was reused), there are places to go to to listen to live music such as The Stables ( Dame Cleo Laine and the late and great Sir John Dankworth set it up) and there is even an international festival planned for July 2010.

To you Milton Keynes might just be a place on a map, but to me its home and I love it. And if you ever want a tour just let me know!

Wordless Wednesday - Vox Pop (The Family) by John Clinch and me.

I know this is wordless, but just pretend you can't see this. In Milton Keynes shopping Centre there is a lot of Art including these Bronze statues by John Clinch,This multi-racial ‘family’ walk a dog, cycle and push a baby buggy following a circular path, encouraging visitors to walk round them and examine the detail of the sculpture... or in Baby Boys case work out which one was him.

Oh and yes you have my permission to not laugh at Daddy's T-Shirt.